


Sliding Off the Skin of the World

by accol



Category: Generation Kill, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Crossover, M/M, War, YAGKYAS, YAGKYAS 2012
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-19
Updated: 2012-12-19
Packaged: 2017-11-23 02:57:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/617323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/accol/pseuds/accol
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nate thought the battle was over, but now he must weigh one man against all of humanity.  [BradxNate with background ClintxNatasha, ChristesonxQ-Tip]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sliding Off the Skin of the World

**Author's Note:**

> An _Avengers_ crossover. Liberties were taken with the _Avengers_ plotline (giving it a little flavor of the Kree-Skrull war) to suit the GK one. Descriptions of war violence, language.
> 
> Written for YAGKYAS 2012 for [mydocuments](http://mydocuments.livejournal.com). Deepest thanks to nomorerippedfuel, thommygirl, and robotlauren for beta.
> 
> Based on fictionalized portrayals in the HBO miniseries _Generation Kill_ and _The Avengers_. No harm or infringement intended.

 

_  
"People are a lot tougher than you'd believe, and if you don't believe it,  
just take a look at me, sliding off the skin of the world by my fingernails." _\-- Stephen King, _IT___

****

"Bro, Person was telling me there are like fifty words for sand in fuckin’ Hajji speak. You think that’s true?"

Nate caught that snippet of conversation between Q-Tip and Christeson and smiled. As he walked past, he wondered to himself if it was also true that Eskimos have so many words for snow. He’d read that somewhere once. There was something both romantic and methodical about the notion of describing something so thoroughly. Academic satisfaction settled upon him.

"Could be," Q-Tip replied, rolling over on his makeshift bunk to face Christeson. He handed him a canteen; Nate could ignore the probable contents for tonight. "I heard that Eskimos got, like, a hundred words for snow, so."

"Dang," Christeson replied, apparently pondering the vastness of the tundra. Or of sand dunes. Nate smiled again, tucking his face lower to conceal it. Q-Tip and Christeson were good for each other. They were two that Nate didn't have to worry about in the aftermath.

He walked out to the factory’s exterior hallway, making his rounds past the men. Almost all of them wore smiles as they dealt cards or eagerly talked about getting back home soon, maybe seeing a bit of real action before they got out of here. They were chalking this one up as a win, and the adrenaline hadn’t cleared their systems. They’d made it to Baghdad intact save Pappy, and his prognosis was excellent.

Nate still had the shadow of Schwetje’s accusations of insubordination hanging over him. He’d bitten his tongue as much as he could on that one, and the _shoulda-coulda-woulda_ ache gnawed at him. Worse yet, he had his own doubts about what they’d done here, about the things he’d ordered, about his inability to make the things that Brad had suggested come to fruition. It was believing in something and not believing in it simultaneously. It was coming to the realization that command was as much a burden as an operational asset, and something about that made fine cracks form in the dream he’d once had of the Corps.

But now, looking out the huge, shot-out windows, he could take five mikes to appreciate things. Light came in, dappled and refracted through the remaining shards of glass that hung in the frames. The night was fairly quiet. The sporadic gunfire felt far away; it was so familiar at this point, that it was almost soothing. It felt like a weight off to just feel the gentle movement of the breeze.

Behind the shadow of one of the pillars, Brad was shouldering the wall like he was holding it upright, or possibly vice versa. He’d shed his blouse and his pale arms stood out ghostly in the low light, the sleeves of his skivvie shirt pulling tight across his biceps. Nothing had been truly good during their time here, except for maybe the formation of this... with Brad. They understood each other, Nate thought.

"Sergeant," Nate said, voice soft in volume and tenor.

"Sir," Brad responded. He shifted against the wall, crossing a foot at the ankle. Nate knew this was Brad’s version of refueling; time away to recharge. The itch to be near his best TL made him trespass, though. Since Mathilda, it’d been like this. He’d leaned on Brad and Brad had never let him fall. Nate hoped that Brad was getting something out of this, and that he wasn’t just taking, taking, taking.

Their eyes met directly, and that was enough for now. Nate could compartmentalize the brief pulse of surging tension. They were at the brink of something, or Nate thought he’d like to be, but now couldn’t be the time. Brad let him into his silence with no question or sign of discontent with Nate’s presence. Nate smiled a little and settled in shoulder-to-shoulder with him. Warmth blossomed at the point their arms touched. It was a gesture that mattered in a place where violence -- mock or real -- was the only sanctioned contact. They’d both spent the last fistful of days holding up a wall between their men and the shit coming at them from all vectors. Now they leaned together against this bullet-pocked one, breathing in the same air and it was easy.

"Thanks, Brad," Nate finally said. There was no way to say everything, so Nate hoped that would suffice.

"Sir?"

Nate was looking out over the roofs of the nearby buildings, but he felt Brad’s eyes on him. Maybe they were tracing the line of his jaw, pausing at the corner of his mouth. It felt like they maybe were. He enjoyed the idea of Brad studying him, and that surging feeling was back for another blink of time.

Nate was quiet for a long moment, feeling unburdened for as long as he could. Then he went out on a limb, one that stuck right over a pit of fraternization. He was as coded as he could manage.

"When we get back stateside, it’ll be time for you to call me by my first name."

Nate could feel Brad chewing on that thought. Perhaps the pressure of their arms on one another deepened. Warmth flowed across his skin a little further. This was the thing that reenergized Nate, and Nate suspected Brad knew exactly that.

"Yeah, I think so," Brad nodded.

Nate met his eyes again and, yeah, easy.

****

_Zip._

A sniper shot sizzled close enough to Nate’s ear for his eyes to narrow with an involuntary wince. He rolled flat to his stomach, everything in slow motion, his body protesting from being thrown during the blast that had taken out the building next to the factory. Loud ringing throbbed in his ears but every one of his exhales sounded like he was alone, fifty meters underwater wearing a rebreather.

Brad’s command to the few others on their side of the melee barked from Nate’s 10 o’clock, joining the cacophony. Nate crawled toward the sound of Brad’s voice, letting it draw him in like a beacon in the smoke. Gravel, rebar, glass all dug sharply into his forearms. He’d been down to his skivvie shirt and there hadn’t been time to find his blouse when the attack started. Blood oozed from his knuckles where they scraped along the shrapnel, still gripping his sidearm. Two precious clips were in his belt.

Christeson’s Minimi cracked to life, sending sharp volleys of return fire over Nate’s back.  He could hear the scream of an alien machine tearing through the air overhead. Christeson’s bullets arced to follow.

Comms were down in the one humvee they had on their side. By the sound of gunfire, the rest of Bravo had spilled out on the other side of the building. Nate had to get closer to call the retreat. They needed to fall back, wait for reinforcements. He needed to communicate with Command, regroup.

The ground shook under him with the massive concussion of something a block or two over. Dust rained down around them like some kind of early morning mist.

"Shit, sir," Stafford said. He was grinning over the sight of his rifle, looking wide-eyed and slightly manic. His focus snapped off Nate’s face, back to his sight, and then an enemy combatant was crashing into the side of the gutted building directly to their east. "Got another of ‘em. What the fuck are those fuckers, sir?"

His smile looked strained, but it hadn’t dropped off Stafford’s face even when he fired. Nate squeezed his arm. The tendons of his hand strained even in the gentle grip; bruised. He ignored the discomfort and forced his mind to focus.

"Drop down and take some water. Make sure Christeson does too."

It wasn’t an answer to Evan’s question because Nate didn’t have one. The cigarette factory was supposed to be the end of it. They’d cleared a route into Baghdad, and this was supposed to be it. The ear-splitting explosion moments ago had clearly signaled they were not done. This time, however, they were fighting an enemy they hadn’t trained for.

From behind the damaged victor, Brad’s eyes locked with Nate’s. It was another quick, shared moment of quiet in the middle of chaos, just like the one they’d had a second after the building had rocked under their feet. When they were too wired to sleep and found each other in the hallway outside the makeshift barracks, they’d had another kind of silence that was supposed to have preceded an entirely different kind of life-changing event.

The sky falling to the sound of laser screams was not supposed to be that event.

Nate moved to crouch on Brad’s left. There were a hundred words for how fucked up this was, isolated and taking fire, and a hundred more for the strangely timed burst of pride Nate felt at the composure of these three under pressure. Nate’s shoulder rested against Brad’s for a long moment.

"Sir," Brad started, but Q-Tip’s exclaimed "Shit!" interrupted.

"Yo, was that a fucking _arrow_ that just took out the alien surfboard motherfucker?" Christeson was craning his head around, trying to see where it came from. "Yo, Evan, you saw--"

Nate’s focus had just resolved on John, laying in a sniper position with Evan’s arm circling over his back. Evan’s scope was trained toward 11 o’clock, and then Evan was gone. He was just... _snatched_. His arms and legs kicked as he was pulled vertically off the ground like a giant puppet master had pulled his string. The look of abject loss that immediately took hold on John’s face was horrifying.

"Fuck, Q-Tip! Shit!" John frantically looked to Nate. "Sir? They took him! We gotta... ah, shit, what‘re we gonna do, sir? Sergeant?" His eyes moved between Brad and Nate searching for something, anything.

Everything felt slow. Nate half-moved toward the space that Stafford had just occupied, half-turned his head to look at Brad. Every millisecond felt like an age as his eyes sought him out. Brad’s face wore the same surprised look as Nate’s. Neither of them had a fucking clue of how to react to what was going on here. This was so far outside the IA. Brad blinked at Nate and then snapped to Christeson.

"Christeson, focus," Brad barked. "Take cover and watch every vector you can get your eyes on." He pushed on Christeson’s shoulder, rolling him under their victor. He’d be able to take a few seconds under there.

"4 o’clock. High," Nate hissed. He’d seen the source of the arrow, a dark, low form on the roof to their right. It was hard to process the presence of an archer in a warzone. This was the 21st century, not the 16th. But then Nate could make out through the smoke the man’s elbow cocking and a LED-tipped arrow letting loose. It seemed to home in on another racing attacker, exploding when it pierced the alien glider.

Brad looked through his scope. "Friendly?"

"No fucking clue, but he’s taking out the same guys we’re aiming for so let’s leave him to it."

Brad and Nate shared a look that clearly read "what the fuck?" Brad rolled onto his stomach on the berm of concrete and brick shrapnel. He pulled off four distinct rounds. Nate matched the motion, facing the opposite direction, back to the ground. Christeson was shooting from under the humvee and Nate could hear him growling obscenities as he aimed for foot mobiles to the north.

_Something fast._

Something incredibly fast was shooting down from the sky. Nate’s voice couldn’t come. His eyes moved, but his warning was caught behind his tongue. The mechanical claw closed around Brad’s form even while he was pulling the trigger on his M4 a fifth time. Nate grabbed for Brad, his fingernails scraping across Brad’s forearm and coming back bloodied as Brad was ripped skyward.

"No," he choked. He aimed his gun upward, but there was no way to fire without hitting Brad. Brad locked eyes with Nate for a fraction of a second, one that felt like a hollow forever, before attempting to turn and aim his own weapon at the thing that had taken him. He disappeared into the dust and smoke.

Nate slumped into the ground. A sharp piece of rebar jabbed into his shoulder blade. He welcomed the vivid pain... two men lost in a matter of minutes, two of his best men. His best.

The gravel was his bed, a bed of nails, and the pain was almost sweet as he suffocated on the memory of Brad’s face receding into the sky. He laid there, drifting anchorless in his shock. Christeson’s rounds ticked off the seconds in a legato that carried Nate further into moorlessness.

A woman’s voice pierced Nate’s daze, and he was ripped back into the moment. "Clint!"

Nate’s head snapped back in the direction of the roof. A woman in high tech gear was watching from ground level as the archer was snatched just like Evan had been minutes before. Just like Brad had been.

"No!" Her voice was raw. She aimed her sidearm, but there was no clear shot through the roiling smoke that hung above them.

Out of the corner of Nate’s eye, he caught another zipping motion. Christeson’s gun spat bullets, thudding out in great belches toward the approaching enemy.

"Get down," Nate yelled, pushing up and running for the woman.

She kept looking upward, aiming at nothing, rage and despair running across her features. Nate knew exactly how she felt. His own horror was still pulsing through him in nauseating waves.

"Get the fuck down!" Still five yards out. The alien surfboard, as John had dubbed it, was closing on her.

Finally, she registered Nate’s yells. She triangulated as Nate aimed his own sidearm at the incoming enemy while he ran over the uneven rubble. As his gaze flicked between her and the alien, she rolled onto her back, then up on a knee, guns firing with amazing accuracy. The surfer fell limp from his shuttle, his body a broken heap as his craft skidded across the ground, coming to a halt against the wall of the adjacent building.

"Where the fuck did you take him?" She had her gun against the side of the alien’s head and her fist in its cloak. "Where is he?"

Nate trained his weapon on him too, but it was obvious he was already dead. Her bullet had taken off the side of his face and ichor oozed from the wound.

Christeson was suddenly at Nate’s side. "Sir! We gotta--"

Nate held up a hand. He addressed the woman. "Did you see our men taken?"

She nodded, gun still against the alien. She was tense with the all-consuming need to act. She stared at Nate, _through_ him, with a hatred that wasn’t for him.

"Come on," she said, dropping the body. "Get on."

She mounted the alien craft and it hovered, wobbling, a few inches above the ground.

"Get on now," she barked. "We’re going to recover them."

Nate hesitated for exactly one second, weighing the consequences of the command structure versus the need to rescue two captured Marines. They were in the position to make an incursion. (He didn’t dwell on the fact that perhaps they were _not_ actually in the position to have any ability to recover Brad and Evan, because the blue of Brad’s rapidly retreating eyes was still etched into his mind.)

"John," Nate said, voice low and intense. Christeson climbed on, and Nate followed. They gripped the narrow sides of the craft and the woman pulled back on the controls.

****

"I need a radio, a phone," Nate said. He was tense from jaw to toes. Christeson was following Nate closer than his own shadow, dirt-smudged fingers so tight on his weapon that Nate could see his white knuckles under the grime. Nate squeezed John’s bicep reassuringly.

Agent Hill handed him a headset.

With a deep breath, Nate clicked in the comm frequency and hit the communicator’s toggle switch. "Hitman Actual, this is Hitman Two Actual."

Almost immediately, Schwetje’s voice came across the comm. "Nate! Shit! Where the hell are you? We thought you were dead."

"We were separated to the east side of the building during the initial blast. Colbert, Stafford, Christeson, and myself."

"Well, I don’t have to tell you how important it is that you get back here. Alpha took casualties and you can’t just be hanging out--"

"Captain, Sergeant Colbert and Corporal Stafford were taken by the enemy."

Static came over the line. Schwetje had the line hot, and Nate was impatient. He could hear the muffled sounds of Schwetje talking to Griego maybe. It didn’t fucking matter who, as long as Nate could get permission to execute a rescue mission. Natasha had gotten the alien transport as far as Baghdad city center before it had given out in the shadow of the massive parent ship. Nate and John had shot down enemy fliers until they’d run out of ammo. Then they’d been picked up in a helicopter by a man in a trench coat and an eye patch.

"You gotta leave ‘em," Schwetje’s voice crackled over the line.

Nate took a deep breath, his blood pounding like it was trying to punch the mere thought of Schwetje. "With all due respect, sir. Fuck that."

"What did you say?"

"You heard me. I’m currently with a team that has the resources to recover our men and theirs. I request that Bravo dispatch a team. I want Hasser, Trombley, Kocher, Espera--"

"Nate, be serious. I can’t give you any men. You’re AWOL. Plus, this isn’t our fight. This is, like, aliens vs. aliens. Command is having us trench in and wait it out."

"Wait it out, sir? Like waiting out the Sunni and the Shia in Baghdad, _sir_?"

"Nate--"

"Then I’m goddamn AWOL." Nate slammed the radio down. "We’re getting them back." He turned to Agent Hill, sure that the flare of angry emotion was showing as red blotches in the hollows of his cheeks. His breath came at an elevated rate through his nostrils. "Where are the rest of your team."

She huffed an unexpected laugh and pointed down the starboard hallway. "I wouldn’t call them a team per se."

_Great._

"Stay put," Nate said to John. "Eyes and ears open."

John nodded sharply. Nate watched his shoulders simultaneously ease and go back at attention. He was glad for an order, for something to do that might make this situation unfuck itself. Nate was glad to give it, even while he acutely felt the contradiction at resisting Schwetje’s order.

His boots clanged against the metal floor grating. Ten steps, twenty, thirty. Clang, clang, clang, _Brad_.

Nate entered a well-lit laboratory. A spear with a glowing blue blade rested in a curved stand on a lab bench. Its throbbing light was almost hypnotic, soothing Nate’s rage with a foul, medicinal taste. He pulled his eyes away from the only thing in the room that felt like it was taking action.

"Excuse me, sirs, the recovery operation--"

Tony held up a hand to silence Nate and poked at a specimen -- possibly from the surfboard that Natasha had stolen -- with a pair of tweezers.

"The kid’s right, Stark," Steve said. "Time is of the--"

Tony’s hand went up again. "If thermonuclear physics takes me a night to learn, this," he poked with the tweezers again, "needs at least a couple of hours."

Thor grunted. "I say we go now. Loki is--"

"If everyone would just calm down for a minute." Bruce pushed up his glasses.

"This isn’t your science project. This is an intergalactic war."

"So we should go in unprepared? Great plan."

"Bravery goes hand-in-hand with stupidity around here."

"And your timidity is getting us nowhere!"

The four of them bickering was a dissonance that made Nate feel close to the edge of losing control. He closed his eyes, the pulsing blue light of the spear penetrating his lids and needling his way into his brain. Pushing back upon the feeling of rage was Brad’s warmth. The pressure of it ebbed and waned along Nate’s shoulders with every growled, sarcastic, unproductive word from the men in front of him.

He’d had enough. Command structure had never seemed more appealing than it did in this moment. He had no patience for this while their man and Nate’s were being held captive.

Or worse.

He walked out of the lab, his thoughts a swirling Babel. He crossed his arms in front of him and scrubbed his hands down his arms like he was cold.

****

Natasha’s skin gleamed under the harsh lights. Sweat rolled down, leaving drips like tears on the mat below her feet. Nate walked over and put his weight behind the punching bag so she could pummel it. Her face was tight, lips pursed, but Nate recognized what was behind it. He felt it too, the helplessness, the inaction, the itch, the loss.

What was Brad doing right now? Fighting? Under interrogation? Dead? Nate’s emotions thrashed at the innumerable possibilities. Was it was selfish to want to attack an enemy force with the primary goal of recovering a single person? Perhaps the root of all wars was as simple as this. Eros and patriotism couldn’t be so far apart, right?

Blood rushed into Nate’s face.

"Stop silently psychoanalyzing me, Fick," she said, landing a kick to the bag that had Nate correcting his balance. "You’ve got the same thing hanging over you."

Nate nodded silently and braced the bag more solidly. Rudy would have been impressed by her; hell, anyone would have wanted her at their six. Nate needed her at his, along with Christeson and the men in the other room. Natasha punched hard left, then right.

"He’s my right hand," she said softly, smoothing a loose end of tape over her knuckles. "Most of our work for S.H.I.E.L.D. is half a world apart, but fighting together we’re better. To end this," she gestured toward the door, and Nate knew she meant both the tension among her team and the greater war outside, "I need him."

Light refracted through the drips on the floor between their feet. Nate saw the blue of Brad’s eyes receding again. He saw Brad turning to fight.

"They’re arguing over ego. We need to move before there is nothing left to recover," Nate said quietly. It was time. "The stakes on this are too high to wait."

Her hands found the punching bag, open this time and gentle. She rested her forehead on it.

"They won’t admit that Loki is pushing their buttons. He’s driving wedges between all of us before we’ve even assembled."

"The spear."

She nodded. "He wants to use it to take over the planet. He will enslave everyone if we don’t stop him."

"None of them see the bigger picture." Nate reddened again, hearing the potential hypocrisy of his own words. Was he trying to fool himself or could he look past his own narrow focus?

Natasha’s eyes softened for a moment as they took in his expression. Her pinky finger moved to touch Nate’s on the bag. There were still maroon traces of Brad’s blood under Nate’s nails.

"Tony doesn’t trust Fury, and consequently he won’t fully trust me. You’re from outside of S.H.I.E.L.D. You have to convince them."

Hossein’s words about Baghdad came back to Nate: _All this is a bomb. If it explodes, it will be bigger than the war._

An alien war on Earth wasn’t going to blow over or resolve itself like Schwetje insinuated. Every second they waited here was time for Loki’s plan to take hold, even with him jailed on board S.H.I.E.L.D.’s ship. And with him here, the men in the other room ticked closer to tearing each other apart. The only consequence of waiting was utter destruction.

"Come with me," he said to Natasha.

****

Yelling spilled into the hallway.

"This is madness!" Thor bellowed.

"Earth cannot be the beachhead for some intergalactic Normandy," Steve said. "Fury gathered us here for a mission, Stark."

"Oh, wake up," Tony sneered. He leaned back quickly, looking proud of himself, and said to Steve, "Pun very much intended, old man."

"Tony," Bruce cautioned. Turning to the others, he said, "S.H.I.E.L.D. wants the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction in defense of invaders like these. There is no doubt that this was triggered by your little visit from Asgard."

A piercing whistle shut them all up. Natasha gave a curt nod to Nate after pulling two fingers from her mouth.

"We don’t have time--" Tony started.

"That’s right," Nate interrupted. "We are out of time. This is about more than my lost men. It’s about more than Hawkeye or your brother. It’s certainly about more than egos and proving your science. And right now it’s about more than S.H.I.E.L.D.’s motivations. This is about humanity, saving it and planting a stake in the ground for our future. We -- whether we like it or not -- have the responsibility for all of those who don’t have the resources to fight because we do have the ability. We must have the will to engage the enemy because of all possible consequences, inaction will bring the worst. With all due respect, it’s time to fall in line."

The silence that met Nate’s careful words was deafening.

"Loki brought the Kree and the Skrull here to distract us while he takes our freedom. He grins while he says we are slaves to the concept of freedom and that totalitarian rule is somehow liberating. That is the platitude of a sociopath, but in the absence of leadership -- and leadership right now -- the world could be seduced by that notion. We have to intervene not only to save our men, but to put ourselves between humanity and the end of life as we know it."

Nate took a breath. He felt propped up by an invisible wall of strength.

"Thucydides said the secret to happiness is freedom, and the secret to freedom is courage. This is about legacy," Nate said pointedly at Tony. "This here, today, right now, would overshadow 9-11 a hundred-fold. It would send the world into a chaos of genocide, a black anarchy. And every moment we waste, is a moment where people are dying to feed the maw of slavery."

Steve squared himself to Nate, shoulders back, feet spread.

Nate continued, "Pfc. Christeson and I are the remnants of one platoon and you, frankly, are a band of misfits who apparently can’t work together to save yourselves, let alone something greater. We cannot strongpoint an enemy ship with this."

"How do we do this, then?"

"As a team," Steve replied.

Natasha’s mouth curled up into a smirk at one corner and Nate was immediately reminded of Brad, of why he was doing all of this.

"We’ve got something they haven’t. _You_ , Lieutenant."

Fury and Agents Coulson and Hill leaned in the doorway behind her. Fury wore an appraising look on his face.

****

Nate signaled for John and Natasha to fall in behind him. John was so close to Nate’s six that Nate could see the muzzle of his rifle in his peripheral vision. He couldn’t wall off the surge of desperation. It propelled him forward faster, throwing himself into the AO despite their scant intelligence... or maybe because of it. He had to get to their men.

 _Brad_. He had to get to Brad.

They crept down the narrow hallway, Nate using his dead reckoning and his gut instinct to take him in the right direction. He hoped beyond hope that he’d find Brad and Evan intact, even while he prepared himself for the worst. Nate’s shoulder brushed the wall and for the barest moment he was back in the cigarette factory with Brad looking him over like they had all the time in the world.

From down the corridor there was the deafening rattle of gunfire and a terrifying roar that could only be the Hulk. Nate ran then, John and Natasha nearly forgotten behind him as he rounded the bend in the hallway. Muzzle flashes illuminated the struggling forms. A whispering zing of a bullet narrowly missed Nate as he strode into the thick of it.

Nate’s palms itched against the grip of his rifle. There he was, in the midst of it. Brad Colbert looking like a superhero. Nate wanted to get Brad under his hands to make sure he was real and not just some Mesopotamian mirage. He had almost let himself believe that Brad was lost forever, a white star in a green lawn of other stars and crosses.

"LT!"

Christeson’s sharp warning cry brought him back to reality. A face covered with a breathing apparatus invaded his field of vision, and a cool, scaly hand closed on his left forearm. Nate’s instinct took over, and he pitched his bodyweight hard to the left, bending his knee deeply and rolling. The Kree crashed to the floor, jerking Nate along in his fall. But Nate’s gun hand was still free, and he coldcocked him, shattering his mask. The Kree’s grip on Nate slackened as he suffocated in Earth’s air.

Nate tore himself up and away, searching with what felt like a sixth sense for Brad through the acrid smoke and gunfire.

 _Crack_. Nate pulled the trigger and a body fell less than a yard from Christeson’s three o’clock. _Crack-Crack_. Q-Tip’s bullet found another a split second before Nate’s. _Crack_. Nate’s ears throbbed and another fell at Brad’s boot.

"Fuck, sir. About time," Brad smiled.

There was a second of breathless calm in the violence before time sped again. Nate took in everything about the scene: Brad’s shirt in tatters, grime-smeared muscles flexing beneath it while he fought aliens with a guy in a do-rag and an archer. A laugh tumbled out of him.

"Glad to see you find my captivity and subjugation to be amusing," Brad said.

"Just really fucking glad to find you alive and in one piece."

"Ditto."

Nate braced his shoulder against the back of Brad’s. His M4 fit against his other shoulder, the recoil jostling them together with every bullet fired. On his other side, Hawkeye backed into their space, his elbow coming back before the twang of an arrow letting go. Crouched low, Natasha’s double handguns popped.

"Just like Al Muwaffaqiyah."

Brad snorted. "You and I remember Al Muwaffaqiyah very differently, sir."

"No more sirs, Brad. Call me Nate," he whispered against Brad’s cheek.

Nate pressed his shoulder against Brad’s for a moment, and then pivoted. His back against Brad’s, warmth without words. Just like Natasha had said, together they were better.

****

Dust was still falling around them like a fog when Tony flipped open his visor and said, "Well, I don’t know about you, but I could go for some food. JARVIS tells me that Baghdad has fantastic Thai." Tony draped a metal arm around John’s shoulder and another around Evan’s. "Come on, boys. I’m buying."

Over the shrapnel, everyone started heading back to the shuttle. A swarm of S.H.I.E.L.D. soldiers came through on clean-up duty.

Brad’s hand brushed over the back of Nate’s, and Nate turned. He didn’t have the right words for where they found themselves. They’d amazingly hung on to the world by their fingertips. He put a hand on Brad’s shoulder, squeezing, trying to keep it consistent with what was allowed. Brad moved a breath closer.

"Nate," he said softly.

Nate’s breath came sore and ragged and deep. The taste of the battle was in his lungs, but it was emotion making them burn. He didn’t unfist his hand from Brad’s shirt.

"Bro, you coming?" Q-Tip’s voice broke the moment. Brad stepped away from Nate with a knowing smile that made Nate’s blood rush.

Then, from Q-Tip’s left, "Ah, sir? Lieutenant Fick?"

"Yes, Agent Coulson."

"I hope you don’t mind, but I was wondering if I could have a picture with you?"

Brad chuckled, but he did accept the camera from Coulson. "I know you can smile pretty, _Nate_."

****

Clint leaned over Natasha’s shoulder and whispered carefully into her ear. Neither of them looked away from Brad and Nate. Both of them tried to hide their smiles by eating another bite of Thai food.

Nate’s knee came to rest against Brad’s under the dinner table. The team around them was a fucking mess. Filthy, cut, exhausted... but smiling. Brad’s knee pushed back solidly. Relief finally washed over Nate in a soul-blossoming wave. He coughed for air past his constricted throat muscles.

Brad’s eyes met his. "Nate?"

The holding pattern was over. His shoulder and knee were warm and strong; so were Nate’s, and he could breathe. The sound of his name across Brad’s lips...

"Let’s get out of here," Nate said, carefully avoiding Natasha’s look. "We should report in. Evan and John can have a hot meal and come in later."

Brad nodded.

Nate caught Natasha whispering something to Clint. He thought he could read the "I bet you’ll be _reporting in_ " look on their faces. Clint inclined his head at Brad.

****

Agent Hill handed Nate the comm again. He bypassed Schwetje and radioed Godfather.

"Godfather wants you back at the factory in thirty mikes," Eckloff said. "Good work up there, but we need your after action ASAP."

"Copy, Hitman Two out." Nate and Brad shared a look. Never a good time.

Agent Hill interrupted. "There’s a shower in the bunks down a level if you want a quick one."

Nate laughed. "Thank you."

****

Brad’s fingers were trembling when he brought them to the tattered hem of Nate’s shirt. It was a contradiction for those strong hands to show even an iota of vulnerability. Nate rubbed his thumb over Brad’s abraded knuckles, feeling the rasp of the damaged skin, seeing his own raw, scarred hands.

Brad cleared his throat. "While we were up there, it must have been five hundred kinds of fucked up."

Brad brought one hand higher. The brush of his warm, war-roughened skin against the hollow of Nate's neck made his heart race. Brad’s steady focus on the hollow of Nate’s neck was another unbearable inaction.

Brad’s eyes rose to Nate’s and he continued. "But there was very clearly one motivation for getting out of there."

Nate cupped Brad's stubbled chin with his palm. He understood exactly. A ridiculous thing, this. Of all the rules that surround a Marine, allowing brotherhood to deepen into something else was high atop the pyramid of prohibitions. They had a thousand reasons not to take this further, but Nate kept giving them one more opportunity and Brad kept giving him one more reason.

Without breaking Brad's gaze, Nate closed the distance between their lips. The dry press of mouths quickly gave way to the taste of lemongrass-flavored breath. Nate’s tongue searched for the crease of Brad’s lips and found the wet warmth of Brad’s tongue doing the same. They had so little time; thirty mikes ticking away.

Nate’s hands moved methodically across the planes of Brad's body in his search for injuries. He pulled Brad’s shirt off, his thumbs skirting over Brad’s hardened nipples for the briefest caress. Brad’s stomach went concave for a quick breath in response. Brad's shoulders, the skin there red, scuffed almost raw in a strip where the strap of his rifle had rubbed when he’d been taken. Nate's hands felt the intake of Brad's ribs as Nate brushed his lips across the tender skin.

"I want to learn everything," Nate whispered.

"I’ll try not to get abducted by aliens this time," Brad said just as quietly.

Nate laughed against his shoulder.

****

"Are you prepared to serve more than just your country?" Fury stood eye-to-eye with them and issued the challenge.

"And get all this?" Brad inclined his head at the heaps of shrapnel that littered the ground around the cigarette factory. First Recon was in recovery mode, and the sounds of Doc barking at people carried across the factory’s courtyard.

Fury’s forehead wrinkled. "How about I get Stark to build you an extra special turret for your Humvee, Sergeant?"

Brad’s eyebrows rose in disbelief at Fury’s tone. "Sir, with all due respect, is this a battle of sarcasm that we’re having here?"

"Not at all. I simply could use someone with your special set of skills. S.H.I.E.L.D. would make better use of your training than the USMC appears to be doing."

Brad’s eyes narrowed. "I’m no mercenary."

From across their small group, Clint snorted. "Like Fury actually pays us for this."

Fury rolled his good eye dramatically. Nate could tell that Brad was considering Fury’s offer, and Fury seemed to feel like that was the hook he needed to make his next offer.

"And you, Lieutenant Fick? What kind of goodies can I pull out of my sleigh for a good boy like you?"

"I’ve been talking to your team."

"And?"

"And, I think perhaps I’ve had my fill of ineffectual command."

Fury’s nostrils flared. In his peripheral vision, Nate could see Brad suppressing a smile.

"Well, Lieutenant," Fury sneered. "Here’s me giving you the chance to make a difference. You gonna take it or watch it drift away?"

Brad’s shoulder pressed against Nate’s, and Nate considered the offer.


End file.
